ON THE QUESTION OF A TEMPORARY REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT.
(Plans and materials for a report and draft resolutions.)
[End of April 1905]

The report was made by V. I. Lenin at the eleventh session of the Congress in Úmanj on 190[5]. The documents printed below represent the successive working through of the resolution proposed to the Congress and materials for the report.

* DRAFT RESOLUTION ON THE PARTICIPATION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN A TEMPORARY REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT.

Regarding the temporary revolutionary government.

1) The necessity of joint pressure to conquer the republic and broad freedoms.

2) The necessity of a struggle for full democracy in order to secure freedom to struggle for socialism.

3) The necessity of struggle against attempts to restore the old régime.

[Taking into consideration]

Taking into consideration

1) that for a truly broad, mass-based, free and open struggle (for socialism) of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, the most complete possible political freedom is necessary,*

*) The word "mass-based" is written above the word "broad." Ed.

Editorship
Iskra
Minsk
Odessa
St. Petersburg
Moscow
Sormovo
Baku
St. Petersburg
Crimea
Don
Mining
District
Kiev
Kharkov A)

and consequently, the largest possible realization of a republican system of government,

2) that an increasingly significant number of representatives of various bourgeois and petty bourgeois strata of the population, as well as* also the peasantry are now coming forward with energetic revolutionary-democratic slogans, naturally and inevitably flowing from the fundamental needs of the masses of the people, the satisfaction of which is impossible under autocracy, but is absolutely necessary in virtue of the demands of the objective development of all socio-economic life in Russia and throughout the world,

3) that the international revolutionary social democracy has always recognized the necessity of the most vigorous support by the proletariat of the revolutionary bourgeoisie in its struggle against all reactionary classes and institutions, on condition of the complete independence of the party of the proletariat and of a strictly critical attitude toward its temporary allies,

4) that the overthrow of the autocratic government in Russia is impossible without replacing it with a temporary revolutionary government, which alone is capable of ensuring truly complete freedom and the correct expression of the will of the entire people in the establishment of a new political system in Russia, which alone can secure the greatest measure of freedom for the entire struggle of the proletariat, which alone can, relying on the proletariat and the most enlightened sections of the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie, carry out our immediate program of political and economic transformations,

— 5) that without the replacement of autocracy by a temporary revolutionary government resting upon all revolutionary classes and elements of classes in Russia, it is impossible and unthinkable to conquer the republic and to attract to the side of the revolution the backward and undeveloped elements of the proletariat and especially the peasantry, — elements whose interests are absolutely contradictory to the old order and which to a significant degree only in consequence of the oppression of prejudices, in consequence of artificial obstacles to their enlightenment, cling to autocracy or stand aloof from the struggle against it.

— 6) that given the existence already in Russia, though only at the beginning of its development, of an already organized Social Democratic workers' party, capable of controlling the actions of its delegates both in parliament and in government, the danger of their deviation from the correct class path is entirely avoidable.

[The 3rd Congress directs the attention of all organizations of the Party to the necessity of the most vigorous utilization of all waverings, half-measures and false concessions of the government on the eve of the upheaval and at the very moment of it — for the purpose of propaganda and agitation among the broadest masses of the proletariat and of the people generally of the necessity of the establishment of a democratic republic with the fullest guarantees of the broadest political freedom, as well as for the purpose of strengthening and developing the expansion and consolidation of the independent [class] organization of the [revolutionary Social Democratic] proletariat of the working class.] The Congress recognizes possible the participation [of delegates] of members of the Social Democratic party in a temporary revolutionary government [in the event] for the purpose of merciless struggle together with the revolutionary bourgeois democracy against all counter-revolutionary attempts on condition of [strict] broad and open control by the party over its [delegates] members and leaders and the unwavering preservation [of its independence from all other parties and striving toward complete socialist] upheaval of the class party of the revolutionary proletariat] independence of the Social Democratic workers' party, striving toward [complete] socialist upheaval and in this respect hostile to all bourgeois-democratic parties.

1) The necessity of freedom and republic.

2) The existence of revolutionary democracy.

3) The obligation to support it.

4) The necessity of a temporary revolutionary government for the overthrow of autocracy.

5) The importance of a temporary revolutionary government for attracting the masses of the people to the side of the revolution.

6) The danger is avoidable.

+ 4 [Congress] and [groups].

|17 organizations] |2)